Road FC will crown its first ever heavyweight champion in 2024. We don’t have a date or a venue confirmed for the fight but we know who will be challenging for the newly minted belt.
Reigning Road FC light heavyweight champion Kim Tae-In will be moving up a division to take on Taisei Sekino. The two men have already had their first face off.
Following Sekino’s win over Jae Hyuk Heo at Road FC 67 they went head to head inside the cage. It wasn’t clear at that stage that the two would face off in a heavyweight title fight.
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Switching focus
Road FC was founded in 2013 and it is not clear why the promotion has waited so long to introduce a heavyweight belt. K-1 veteran Siala Siliga, better known as Mighty Mo, held the openweight title before retiring from MMA.
In 2018 the promotion launched an Openweight Grand Prix which featured Jerome Le Banner, Wu Lahan, Chris Barnett, Alexandru Lungu, Aorigele and Kim Jae-Hun. It never reached a conclusion, possibly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Road FC now appears to have switched focus to heavyweight, which has an upper limit of 265lbs. Kim (4-0) has won four fights out of four for the promotion but has never been higher than 205lbs.
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Vacant title
At Road FC 62 he faced Daniel Gomes in a fight which had the vacant light heavyweight title on the line. It only lasted 13 seconds with the Korean crowned as the champion.
Sekino (6-5) didn’t have a particularly impressive record when he signed with Road FC. The 23 year old has turned his career around after winning three fights for the promotion with all those victories coming inside the opening round.
The Japanese fighter has also competed at light heavyweight in the past. He was last seen in action at Road FC 67, stopping Jae Hyuk Heo after just 58 seconds.
